Types of Microbial
Decontamination
Terms used to refer to decontamination processes are commonly used
interchangeably, including “sanitizing”, “disinfecting”,
“antiseptic” and “sterilization”. However, there are significant
differences in the level of decontamination resulting from these
processes. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has defined three
categories of microbial treatments based on the level of effectiveness
of decontamination; sanitizers, disinfectants and sterilants (EPA).
Sanitizing is the least effective decontamination method. Sanitizers
clean surfaces of pathogens, without completely killing microbial
populations that are considered to be safe from a public health
perspective. Sanitizers can be applied on both inanimate (non-living)
surfaces and live tissues (e.g. skin)(Mahmood et al., 2020).
Disinfectants provide a higher level of decontamination than sanitizing.
The EPA includes antiseptics within the category of disinfectants.
Disinfectants and antiseptics may contain the same microbial pesticide,
which is the chemical agent that inactivates or kills vegitative
microorganisms. The difference between the two is that disinfectants are
used for inanimate surfaces, while antiseptics are applied onto live
tissue.
The best decontamination method is sterilizing, which kills both
vegetative microorganisms and their spores.